-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Fear is a terrible thing to waste . Yet modern Americans have squandered it as a tool for managing burgeoning populations of wildlife .

A woman is in the hospital after she was mauled by a bear while walking in her central Florida neighborhood on Monday . Authorities caught a 75 - to 100-pound yearling , but think the larger predator bear is still on the prowl .

Tom Shupe thinks black bears have a people problem . He 's a state wildlife biologist once responsible for dealing with growing bear-vs . - people conflicts in central Florida .

I spent time with Shupe while researching the book `` Nature Wars . '' He explained that perpetually hungry black bears need plenty of food habitat . Parents disown yearlings , forcing them to find new space . As their populations grow , they spread out , often from the Ocala National Forest south into the swampy sprawl of Greater Orlando .

Trouble starts when a bear turns up in a backyard . Instead of scaring it away , too many people say : `` Oh , is n't he cute . Let 's toss him a cookie . Get the camera . '' Thus begins a photo collection of `` Our Bear . ''

But it 's the beginning of the end for that bear , because the people are teaching it to associate the smell of people with food . The bear comes back for more . Soon it 's breaking into the house . The people call 911 : `` Do something about your bear . ''

Shupe arrives , darts the bear and moves it 100 miles . But the bear has learned people equals food , and does it again . After three strikes , the bear is shot -- euthanized . But it 's not the bear 's fault . It 's the people 's fault .

Deer are eating our gardens and spreading ticks that cause Lyme disease ; coyotes are killing our pets ; turkeys are chasing our children to school ; and geese have overrun our soccer fields because they do n't fear us . And we have done all sorts of things to help them lose their natural fear .

People say our conflicts with wild creatures are our fault because we encroached on their habitat . True , but only half the story . Many species encroached right back . Why ? Because our habitat is better than theirs . Ours can sustain many more of them than their un-peopled landscape .

We put out all sorts of food for them : lawns , gardens , shrubbery , birdseed , grill grease , garbage , dumpster waste . We offer water : Air-conditioner drip pans are water fountains for raccoons . Edges and hiding places are homes : A coyote can have a litter of pups in that brush behind your garbage and you wo n't know it . And we offer protection from predators , mainly ourselves .

The results are mounting in people-vs . - wildlife conflicts . We should be celebrating a conservation success story that is unique on the planet . Instead , we demonize elegant creatures and fight over what to do , or not to do , about too much of a good thing .

How did this happen ? How did we turn this story into such a mess ? In a nutshell :

Over the last century and half , forests grew back on abandoned farmland ; a century ago we ended commercial hunting and began restoring wild bird and animal populations . Since World War II we sprawled out into suburbs and exurbs -- something early conservationists did n't imagine .

The 2000 census showed that for the first time , an absolute majority of the population lived neither in cities nor on working farms but in the vast sprawl zone in between . That 's where family farms were a century ago . Today , it 's full of trees and filling with wildlife . We 've become forest people -- yet we spend 90 % of our time indoors . There we get most of our nature on digital screens , where wild creatures are often portrayed as pets performing all sorts of antics .

Research suggests that the white-tailed deer 's biggest predator since the last Ice Age has been man . But sprawl man has largely gotten out of the predation business . He does n't hunt and does n't want others to hunt around him . He 's peppered the landscape with hunting restrictions and enacted all sorts of laws against hunting , firearms discharges , even bow-and-arrow use in some places .

What this means is that in just the last few decades , for the first time in 11,000 years , huge swaths of the whitetail 's historic range -- the Eastern United States -- have been put off-limits to its biggest predators . No wonder deer have burgeoned out of control .

In Massachusetts , for example , it 's illegal to discharge a firearm within 150 feet of a hard-surfaced road or within 500 feet of an occupied dwelling without the occupants ' written permission -- often not easy to get . Those two laws alone put almost two-thirds of the state effectively off-limits to hunting .

Lots of states have similar restrictions and most were imposed in the name of safety . Guns kill 31,500 people annually in the United States , but hunters are relatively safe . Estimates say about 100 people die in hunting accidents , mainly in cases of mistaken identity . These days , deer kill more than twice that many , both in deer-vehicle crashes and when drivers swerve into a tree or an oncoming vehicle . These accidents hospitalize another 30,000 people . Do n't swerve : Hit the deer .

Overabundant white-tails , meanwhile , do enormous damage to the landscape , and not just gardens and shrubbery . They are ruining our forests by eating their understories so trees ca n't regenerate . No seedlings . No places for understory birds and the insects they feed their newborn .

Black bears are shy and docile creatures motivated by hunger and fear , but they , like deer , beavers , turkeys , waterfowl and others , were almost wiped out in the United States by the end of the 19th century . Daniel and Rebecca Boone reportedly killed 155 of them in one season in Kentucky . With protection , they slowly came back in the 20th century , to about 750,000 in 2002 and perhaps a million or more today .

Between 1900 and 2009 , black bears killed 63 people -- 86 % were in the last 40 years . Why the increase ? More bears and more denatured people living in the same habitat . Birdseed sellers now refer to wild birds as `` outdoor pets , '' helping to condition people to think that putting out food for wild animals is an act of kindness . It is n't .

Food and no fear have turned many normally nocturnal wild creatures diurnal . They hang out among us in the daytime .

Nuisance wildlife control people say tossing rocks at coyotes would help reinstill their fear of people . Instead , I 've known people to toss them dog biscuits . Carrying a stick or a golf club is enough to deter wild turkeys , mail carriers tell me . Bear-proofing your garbage cans and taking down your birdfeeders in spring are no-brainers .

Conflicts between people and wild animals will continue to rise as both populations grow into one another . There are all sorts of ways to mitigate them , both lethal and nonlethal . Some work better than others . Reinstilling their fear will help . Feeding them wo n't .

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jim Sterba .

@highlight

Jim Sterba : Wildlife more and more encroaching on our space , and we into theirs

@highlight

A bear mauled a woman in Florida neighborhood ; deer-vehicle accidents kill

@highlight

Sterba : Conflicts between people and wild animals will rise as they lose fear of us

@highlight

We indulge them , he says , but we should be reinstilling their fear